Domination Fixes and Updates

[MH6~SPARTA~]

I felt like trying to improve the Domination map a little more, such as fixing some annoying bugs and adding some beneficial features. Here's what I have so far:

 

DONE

1. Two M119s now spawn at base with multiple ammo types (for coordinated spotter-artillery operations during Durka's tactical Friday nights--can remove if necessary)
   Note: They function like choppers, in that they have markers on the map showing their location and will respawn when destroyed

2. Fixed friendly ammo trucks (so they actually rearm)
3. Two C-130Js now spawn at base and can be used to transport and airdrop cargo, such as vehicles.
4. Fixed MLRS so it can be used indirectly
5. Fixed M119s so they can be towed in Salvage Trucks

 

Anyone have any other suggestions?

Edited September 21, 2009 by MH6

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Good job bud, I think Halli has some thoughts for you, but I will let him tell you.

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Good job bud, I think Halli has some thoughts for you, but I will let him tell you.

 

Alright.

 

I was also thinking that instead of having one type of vehicle come from main missions and another from side missions, why not just have main/side missions both randomly choose from the same list, so we get some more diversity? That way we don't get 12 tanks from side and 8 humvees from main (like it seems now), but might instead get a AV-8B, M1A1, and UH-1Y from main and a LAV-25, AH-1Z, and AAV from side (just as an example). So it's still useful to complete the side missions because there's a chance it'll net you a powerful vehicle, but we also get some good vehicles from main mission. Does that make sense?

[custard~SPARTA~]

Good job mate and random rewards sounds a great idea

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Whatever you do, I think the critical thing is that it doesnt become easier to take the towns. Personally I am not a fan of tanks and aircraft obliterating a town, leaving only the clean up for the foot soldiers.

 

If there are aircraft there has to be more anti air (both Shilkas/tanguskas and aa guys), if there is more armour there has to be more anti armour in town. To my mind the key is to always maintain balance and ensure that the air and armour units can only succeed when the soldiers prepared the way.

 

but thats just what I think.

 

BTW Durka is busy with personal stuff, so may not see this, but he is interested in increasing the number of players to say 35. I believe that domination is limited to 30, is that possible or do you think it will lag the game out too much.

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Whatever you do, I think the critical thing is that it doesnt become easier to take the towns. Personally I am not a fan of tanks and aircraft obliterating a town, leaving only the clean up for the foot soldiers.

 

If there are aircraft there has to be more anti air (both Shilkas/tanguskas and aa guys), if there is more armour there has to be more anti armour in town. To my mind the key is to always maintain balance and ensure that the air and armour units can only succeed when the soldiers prepared the way.

 

but thats just what I think.

 

Yeah I agree, but I think everyone is kind of sick of getting nothing but tanks each game. How about keeping the aircraft chance the same (or maybe slightly increased), but instead of having only M1A1/M1A2s below that threshold (75% chance to get a tank!), we can have all ground vehicles. Diversify our force a little bit. Then we set this up for both main and side missions, so we should end up with a nice mix of aerial and ground vehicles, but more of the latter than the former.

 

As for the player count, I can look into increasing it.

Edited August 26, 2009 by Zeno~SPARTA~

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I'm just expressing my view, I know a bunch of people that love flying so would appreciate at least one plane popping up early on.

[Lightspeed~SPARTA~]

for what its worth, I dont mind the odd vehicle here and there but im old school - on the ground is where I want to be and I dont want to do the clean up job after the vcls do the bulk of the work. I want to take on a town with my fellow grunts on the ground.

 

 

[Cylawyer~SPARTA~]

It would be interesting to have a Domination rules specific mission ARMOR night where the AI were veteran level, tons of AI armor and those that like armor could be teamed up in tanks. I assume this would require tweaking Domination to a special set up.

 

I envisioned a coastal plain town area with tons of armor and antiarmor both AI and players. Takes a different set of skills to coordinate the player antiarmor and the tank teams to wipe out the all the enemy armor and AI. If we required three to each tank, that is a maximum of ten tanks if there are no ground anti armor, less if we have ground anti armor, try doubling or tripling those numbers for AI armor and toss in some anti-armor. Not sure if this would be a 5 minute game or an hour game. I was hoping it could be very difficult and take an hour or so. Maybe it could be a random side mission tossed into Domination or a special mission with dom rules as stated above. If it is a 5 minute game it's not worth doing, but an hour in tanks with heavy action would be wunderbar for tank lovers.

 

I personally like driving tanks and letting someone else operate the gun, but running the gun is good too. Commander for taking out antiarmor AI. Would need to limit slots to engineers (at least one per tank) and who knows what else. Would need repair and ammo trucks that could actually repair and rearm tanks. Perhaps reinforcements roll in from a coastal highway when the AI get depleted to a certain level.

 

We could do something like that once to see what it was like if it could be set up. I would not see this as a regular style of play, only a once in awhile mission or a seldom seen random side mission.

 

?????

 

Just some meandering thoughts. What do you think?

[Halli~SPARTA~]

I think Air and Tanks are selfish and take away the game from the majority of whom are ground troops

There is no I in teamwork and when Jets and tanks take a town before half the guys get there it spoils the game.

 

I had been having thoughts of adding more enemy anti-air as it would keep the choppers back and force us all to

take out by foot the anti-air before advancing. More troops more enemy attach choppers and less team Air is how I would want it as the map is to small for all the Choppers and jets.

 

We should even have to regroup before advancing and make the para-jump at taken cities not available as this just lets

single guys enter the hot zone and start the battle before the group has even been regrouped It would also be nice to make the guys transport in Vehicles to next waypoint.........Just my opinion.

 

[Morgan]

So... the underlying sentiment Im hearing from this discussion is:

 

"Domination is wrong for Sparta"

 

Take out air, take out armor, take out teleports... which is fine, but thats what Dom is.

 

Bottomline, judging from what im reading here... it is time to look at a different game mode.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

No one has said Domination is wrong for Sparta, I believe everyone is trying to have a constructive discussion on how to make it better and more fair.

 

If a town can be taken out by one jet or tank in less than 5 min, by 1-3 people, then that spoils the gameplay for the other 27-28 people on the server. People love the jets, but they're not really good for gameplay, unless they're gimped to only have dumb bombs, that could be a compromise.

 

It wouldn't make sense to take out choppers. They don't travel that fast and work best for transportation. Teleporting works well because it serves as a "reinforcement" option.

 

If the world were perfect and Durka was President, I would take out the Cobra, leave the huey, leave the air assets but only give them unguided bombs, and add only manual artillery. I would also add the option of a C-130 because it's only useful for transport and it would be fun to do airborne operations.

 

Cy had a great idea in having some nights where we do tank battles and it's worth exploring further.

 

If there is a different game mode that offers this, I'll be up for it. I have an open mind.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

LOL

 

Morgan buddy you will not find a single person that is currently playing on the Dom server saying that domination is wrong for SPARTA. We like to air our views, I think forinstance that Cy is describing a mission, which would be cool. I am up for a coordinated tank assualt , but like Durka and Halli, I want the soldiers to take the towns in Domination, if they work together all the better.

 

As it stands now if the game isnt modded almost every success results in an M1 so it doesnt need modding for Cy to be in Tank heaven.

 

Now we have left MH6 totally bewildered, so I say do what you think is best and we'll give it a bash.

[Morgan]

No, not a single person on the servers is saying its wrong, but most of the people discussing it here in this thread are.

 

Domination is about starting with crap, working together to get not-so-crap, and finally ruling the day with non-crap. If you take out the rewards, then you take out the very foundation of the game mode. Rewards are the key for the entire mode, otherwise it is just a simple infantry game where we run in, kill the town, rinse and repeat.

 

Im all for the infantry game, but thats not Domination.

 

 

[custard~SPARTA~]

I love the idea of a tank battle mission on one of the other servers but I'm kinda with Halli that Domination could be altered to make it a bit more about infantry as it will involve more of the players in the victory thing.

 

But it's working pretty well at the mo we should take care not to fix what ain't broke

 

Could we should we do more to get guys that are regulars to play in the private server playing Dai-san's missions etc?

[Cylawyer~SPARTA~]

I agree with Morgan, but I also agree with Halli and understand frustration.

 

Morgan's point I think is that Domination has purposely incorporated tanks and aircraft. They are part of the game. To play without them would not be playing Domination.

 

That said, Halli's statements voice a frustration from the perspective that the town's are too easy to take when using aircraft and armor. I know where he is coming from, though I don't totally agree. They have been too easy on a few occassions, but some of the suggestions and adjustments made thus far have corrected that somewhat. The additional AI have made it harder again. Halli's suggestions in his third paragraph I emphatically endorse and I do agree with his second paragraph's suggestion of adjusting enemy AA and making more AI attack choppers and aircraft or at least making them occur more often.

 

I think that some of the ease we had taking towns, prior to increasing the AI numbers, was not the result of armor or aircraft, but WAS the result of the players in the server gelling and working in a more coordinated fashion. That being said, crank up the AI some more, incorporate Halli's suggestions as to more AI attack choppers and aircraft and AA, thus requiring ground troops and arti operators to soften up AA prior to air support. You also could take out laser guided bombs and make them dumb bombs. This would reduce the effectiveness of air support, but not eliminate it (though I like the coordination between aircraft and lasing soldiers, I would be ok with this).

 

If there were a way to jack up the tank and antitank AI to veteran/elite/uber skills without putting the whole server on veteran mode, then you could make the player tank use much harder and more deadly (I don't think it is bad the way it is, but I would go for this kind of change).

 

All this discussion has hijacked this thread which I think I may have started the hijacking, sorry MH6. However, this is good discussion on ways to improve our server without driving away new players.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

No, not a single person on the servers is saying its wrong, but most of the people discussing it here in this thread are.

 

Domination is about starting with crap, working together to get not-so-crap, and finally ruling the day with non-crap. If you take out the rewards, then you take out the very foundation of the game mode. Rewards are the key for the entire mode, otherwise it is just a simple infantry game where we run in, kill the town, rinse and repeat.

 

Im all for the infantry game, but thats not Domination.

 

 

I thought Domination was more about a large group of soldiers working together to take a town by whatever means necessary. The challenge is to find a strategy for each town, using your assets, the lay of the land, ect. and keeping/changing that strategy until the town is taken. The reward, to me anyways, is the satisfaction of ending up at the extraction point with everyone happy on a well-done mission.

 

If there were a way to jack up the tank and antitank AI to veteran/elite/uber skills without putting the whole server on veteran mode,

 

lol, is everyone that opposed to not seeing the enemy on the map???

[Morgan]

The good points for Sparta, in Domination is the ever-changing objectives and side missions... these update automatically and allow the sever to run without interference from a human bean. The game pretty much runs itself 24/7.

 

The bad things for Sparta, in Domination, are the uber rewards, jets and attack choppers that take the ground troops out of the equation in latter parts of the game.

 

So...ideally, if we are going to play a game that provides rewards for effort without unduly destroying the balance of Spartas game (ie, heavily infantry based), then we need to take a serious look at the reward tables and make some adjustments that reward infantry and make it easier to be infantry.

 

Adjust the possibility of a tank reward to extremely small... the occasional tank is a nice change. Nuke the jets, nuke the choppers, ramp up hummers loaded with TOW's and anti-aircraft stuff that infantry dont usually have. Crank up the AA personnel carriers... what we are looking for is to be rewarded with support vehicles for the infantry effort. The tank should be the ultimate reward and happen very, very infrequently.

 

Now, that said, we should also add one or two tanks to the motorpool that spawns at the base. Players will learn to look after them pretty quickly or learn to live without them...

 

Thats going to create the game that Halli and others pine for.

 

 

[Cylawyer~SPARTA~]

....and might drive away some who look for an opportunity to fly a fixed wing once in awhile.

[Morgan]

Yup..pilots have very little role other than transport in an infantry based game.

[evilducky]

How about instead of nerfing the planes or riding of them all together, how about you add 1 plane on the east side to fly around the target area for every one plane that the West side has flying around? That would increase the difficulty for the pilots as right now they only have to worry about the silly ground threats that are taken out by the ground troops first and quickly. Those air threats are pretty deadly against helos and I havent really seen any air - air combad in this game yet.

 

Just a though.

[Morgan]

Heheh.. yeah, sorry MH6 I guess we did kind of hijack the thread.

 

Weve been focusing on adding this or that to the servers..more infantry, less air etc etc etc.

 

The real solution to this dilemma is actually pretty simple... there is one step we can take which will nearly correct every issue raised by everyone in this thread. The real underlying issue is 30 players wind up with 20 sitting around doing very little once the uber stuff rolls out.

 

Limit the server capacity to 15 players. We have two servers (US and UK)... we wont lose any players, the server load will lighten, the difference in ping is minimal really even on the UK server...some players will be slightly higher some will be lower.

 

Smaller squads makes the game last longer, allows pilots to fly, infantry to infant, everyone gets to play their role and work together, and with smaller teams it will likely be necessary to double up on some duties and expand the players usefulness.

 

Apologies again to MH6...

 

[Halli~SPARTA~]

I felt like trying to improve the Domination map a little more, such as fixing some annoying bugs and adding some beneficial features. Here's what I have so far:

 

DONE

1. Two M119s now spawn at base with multiple ammo types (for coordinated spotter-artillery operations during Durka's tactical Friday nights--can remove if necessary)
   Note: They function like choppers, in that they have markers on the map showing their location and will respawn when destroyed

2. Fixed friendly ammo trucks (so they actually rearm)

PARTIAL

1. Fix ability to tow M119s around in Salvage Trucks
   • Restore M119 ammunition after unload: DONE
   • Restore synchronization with Artillery Module after unload: TODO

 

STILL TO DO

1. If West player uses East vehicle to kill East troops, do not count as a team-kill

 

 

Anyone have any other suggestions?

 

All the above looks fine and this is what we shall use untill we come to an agreement on what else can be done.

MH6 thank you for the work and we look forward to trying the above changes out.

[Luggage~SPARTA~]

I felt like trying to improve the Domination map a little more, such as fixing some annoying bugs and adding some beneficial features. Here's what I have so far:

 

DONE

1. Two M119s now spawn at base with multiple ammo types (for coordinated spotter-artillery operations during Durka's tactical Friday nights--can remove if necessary)
   Note: They function like choppers, in that they have markers on the map showing their location and will respawn when destroyed

2. Fixed friendly ammo trucks (so they actually rearm)

PARTIAL

1. Fix ability to tow M119s around in Salvage Trucks
   • Restore M119 ammunition after unload: DONE
   • Restore synchronization with Artillery Module after unload: TODO

 

STILL TO DO

1. If West player uses East vehicle to kill East troops, do not count as a team-kill

 

 

Anyone have any other suggestions?

 

 

If I could spell phenominal I would use it, but I guess I will have to stick with fantastic. Having spent a little time trying to get myhead around M119's I can only say they can decimate in Howizter mode. Having a couple at base will provide brilliant initial pounding cover.

 

On holiday so I can't be with you Friday, but good luck with the new night chaps.

 

 

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Yep, arty can be really fun to do. Just a reminder to all....keep in mind those M119s are at least a 2-man operation. That requires a spotter(Forward Artillery Observer) and a gunner. It's useless, and unfair, to just climb on and start shooting away.